


An Angel for the Tree

by MidnightValkyrie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger - Freeform, F/M, The Slytherin Cabal's Twistmas 2019, Unforgivable Curses (Harry Potter), dramione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21901255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightValkyrie/pseuds/MidnightValkyrie
Summary: While decorating their new home for the holidays, Draco Malfoy is assigned a singular task.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 22
Kudos: 83
Collections: Twistmas 2019 - A Dark Remix Xmas Fest





	An Angel for the Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Twistmas2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Twistmas2019) collection. 



> Written for Twistmas - A Dark Remix Xmas Fest 2019. My prompt was 'Angel on top of the tree'.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Draco Malfoy hadn’t looked forward to Christmas in many years but this year was different. This year he had someone he loved to celebrate it with.

The first day of the year had been the end of his three-year house arrest and probation. It was also the day he’d run into Hermione Granger in Eeylops Owl Emporium. She’d been picking up some treats for Harry’s great horned owl Aruna and he’d been shopping for a new owl to replace his eagle owl, Ares. While he still had the family owl it just wasn’t the same. His mother and father’s owls had left with them when they’d been exiled from the UK at the end of the war.

He'd largely kept to himself during his outing, not used to the throngs of people and all the noise that accompanied them after so much time spent mostly by himself, or on a rare occasion with a maximum of three others, per the terms of his sentencing. He’d had no plans to approach her, despite fervently wanting to try to make amends. Not only was it the right thing, but he’d had a lot of time to think about things and life and her. Many nightmares revolving around her had haunted him from when the trio had been locked in one of the old wine cellars, of her being held to the floor while she’d been mauled and cursed, of the variations of near misses she had during the Battle of Hogwarts that his vivid imagination had twisted into horrific scenarios resulting in her death.

It had been her who’d approached him in the end, as he and a Great Grey Owl had been examining one another, to ask how he’d been. To say the conversation had been stilted and awkward had been an understatement. Before he could gather himself to say anything meaningful, she’d excused herself and fled the shop. He’d purchased the enormous owl moments later after it’d fluttered onto his shoulder. Once home, he’d penned an invitation for tea at a location of her choosing on thick cardstock and sent Neptune on his first delivery.

She’d agreed the rest was history. He’d sincerely apologized for everything, she’d accepted and they began dating after the chemistry between them became insurmountable. The prophet had called it a whirlwind romance, his parents called it both a travesty to tradition and a smart move to bolster the family name, while the public had had varying degrees of response ranging from howlers and cursed filled envelopes to sincerest wishes. Their friends had been so tired of everything involving animosity that outside of a Weasley meltdown nobody else really batted an eyelash. The general attitude had been ‘when this blows up spectacularly, do not involve us’. 

However, at the end of November Draco had decided he wanted to move out of the Manor, away from the lingering shadows of the past. There had been a modern townhouse in Chelsea for sale that Draco had been partial to and since they were still going strong they made the decision to buy it together.

As soon as they’d moved in on the first of December Hermione had declared that they were going to have a spectacular Christmas that year and had proceeded to drag Draco to over a dozen Muggle shops in London. When he’d finally stopped dragging his feet on the notion of her plans he’d taken her to France for wreaths, ornaments and fairy lights, to Italy for knickknacks and window vignettes, and to Germany for pyramids and nutcrackers. She’d turned their home into a warm, cheery environment and had even let him get the behemoth of a tree that could only fit in their library due to the sheer size of it despite having wanted one for the sitting room. It was the only thing he’d been excited about, so far be it from her to have refused him.

The only thing they lacked was a tree topper. None of the ones Hermione had found had pleased her even though that they’d looked at at least a hundred since the first of the month. As Christmas Eve arrived and the top was still bare, she’d finally given up and handed the task over to Draco, trusting the good taste he’d displayed in all of their purchases so far.

It had been during his trip to Brussels that he’d stumbled across the potential of something he knew she’d love after he did a bit of work on it.

It had been risky, casting the Imperius curse in the shopping district, but it was worth it. Hermione deserved that particular gift. He’d just topped the tree and was standing back to admire his work in the last rays of daylight coming through the upper windows when Hermione had found him.

“Draco, what do you want for din-” she’d froze when her eyes had followed where he’d been gleefully staring and had lost the ability to speak.

It took her back many years to when Fred and George had stupified a gnome, turned it golden, and dressed it up as a Christmas fairy. In the here and now, however, on top of their tree was a miniature Dolores Umbridge, stuffed into silver and cream fur-trimmed robes with angel wings stuck to her back and a small Christmas wreath clasped in her hands. Draco had caught the elusive former High Inquisitor of Hogwarts while he’d been out and had put her to good use, just for her.

Nervous gray eyes slid over to study her expression as it morphed from momentarily horrified to puzzled to pleased to viciously gleeful. He relaxed again and slide an arm around her waist once he was sure that she wasn’t going to call the Aurors on him.

“How on earth did you manage that?” she asked instead, a smug grin painted on her lips.

“Well, I’d just purchased an angel topper when I spotted her in the back of the shop. One little Imperius and we checked into a hotel where I provided some shrinking solution and transfigured the robes from the angel a bit to go over a ghastly pink pantsuit she’d been wearing. Then I just stripped the rest of the angel ornament from the mount and stuck her there instead, attached the wings, and came back home,” he pressed a kiss to her temple.

“An angel? Really? And don’t they usually hold candles?” her brows were high on her forehead when she looked up at him.

“All of that and you’re stuck on the fact that I got an angel?”

“Well, it _is_ awfully Muggle.”

He heaved a sigh, “they always reminded Mother of male Veela, so she secretly collected angel Christmas items. As for the candles, I was afraid that if she somehow broke the enchantment she’d burn the house down with them. The wreath seemed safer.”

“Ah, makes sense now,” she turned him to face her, grasping his lapels in her small hands as she looked up at him with heat in her gaze, “You found the perfect thing, I knew I could rely on you,” she said before pulling him down to press a searing kiss to his mouth.

His arms pulled her soft form against his much firmer one as he kissed her back. She _could_ rely on him, he thought, and he was determined to keep proving that to her.

He couldn’t stop himself from grinning into the kiss as he felt the scorch of their new ‘angel’s’ glare at the sight of the product of a millennia’s distillation of purity as he fervently and lovingly kissed someone that was filthier than mud in her eyes. It felt glorious, defying all of the ideology that he’d been raised with that had very nearly ruined his life.

There was only one thing better that he could think to do in this moment.

He broke the kiss and scattered kisses across her face before he sank to his knees in front of her, catching both of her hands in his as gray eyes met shocked brown.

“Hermione, I know we’ve been together for less than a year and that nobody thinks we’ll make it past our first anniversary. I’d venture to say they’re taking bets as to when we’ll end it in a fight for the record books. But I don’t want it to end. You’ve brought light and laughter back into my life. We may argue and have the occasional row, but I can’t imagine a day where I don’t see you, hear your voice, or feel you curl up against me in the middle of the night. You’ve helped me build a life worth living and I wouldn’t trade what we have for all of the diamonds in the earth. I love you and I want to love you for the rest of our lives. Will you please marry me?” his hands released hers long enough to produce a red diamond and platinum ring from his inner jacket pocket.

Tears had gathered in her eyes but she was nodding fervently before he could fret that she would kill him, or worse, say no.

He rose enough to slide into the armchair behind him before pulling her into his lap and sliding the ring onto her finger, guaranteeing the end of the purest of the Pureblood lines.

She cuddled into his embrace, head tucked under his chin as they both gleefully observed their hate-filled, glaring tree topper.

“What are we going to do with her after Christmas?” she wondered.

“I’ll leave that up to you, Darling. Nobody else knows where she is,” he murmured darkly before ducking his head to steal another kiss.


End file.
